Rare Music is a lecture-demonstration series co-sponsored by DUMIC and the Duke University Libraries. Almost once per month (during the academic year) there is a program on a Friday afternoon at 4 PM in the Rare Book Room in Perkins Library. Each event includes a question and answer session and is followed by refreshments.

The schedule is as follows:

You can find parking information here.

For more information, contact Dr. Brenda Scott DUMIC Curator (919) 660-3320.

As many of you know, DUMIC’s flagship collection is the G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy Collection, usually referred to as the Eddy Collection as the whole family was involved in the collection. After the death of his first wife, Ruth, G. Norman Eddy experienced what his granddaughter described as “a true fairytale” in a second marriage with Miriam Dalton Brown.

I am very sad to announce the passing of this remarkable woman, Miriam Dalton Brown Eddy. To quote Dr. Eddy’s granddaughter, Dr. Jennifer Eddy, Miriam Eddy “was an able hostess to many musical ‘soirees’ on Bowdoin street, and married my grandfather when he was 85 and she 80.” When the two were married, Miriam had already had “a rich life on her own – including 40 years in India with the UCC congregationalist church running an orphanage and teaching English literature at Lady Doak college.” Dr. Jennifer Eddy remembers her step grandmother fondly: “She was such a lovely person . . . [S]he was such a big part of the family and his collection for many years.”

As curator I offer my deepest and most sincere condolences to the Eddy family for this great loss. The Eddy Collection at Duke truly has strong family roots.

About DUMIC

The Duke University Musical Instrument Collections(DUMIC) are founded on the flagship collection, the G. Norman and Ruth G. Eddy Collection of Musical Instruments, which arrived here in Durham in 2000. The Eddy Collection has inspired further generous gifts and the acquisition of the Frans and Willemina de Hen-Bijl Collection of Musical Instruments, which arrived at Duke in 2003. While the Eddy Collection consists primarily of instruments and paintings of instruments from America and Europe, Duke’s de Hen Collection includes over 200 musical instruments from all over the world. The de Hen Collection together with the Eddy Collection and other individual gifts make up the DUMIC.

It is the aim of DUMIC to provide students, scholars, performers, and interested members of the public with access to these instruments in order to foster awareness and interest in music of the past and an understanding of the complex network of interrelationships among the areas of cultural history, composition, performance, and the art of instrument making. Highlights include instruments from the time of Mozart and Beethoven, the American Civil War, and instruments from around the world, including objects from the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia.

The maintenance of the Eddy Collection at Duke is made possible through the generosity of the Ethel Sieck Carrabina Fund.

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